Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a compressor guide-vane stage for a turbine engine, in particular for a low-pressure compressor of a turbine engine.
Description of the Related Art
A turbine engine compressor includes at least one guide-vane stage comprising two coaxial shrouds extending one inside the other with substantially radial vanes extending between them, which vanes are connected at their radial ends to the shroud.
The outer shroud of a guide-vane stage has radial orifices in which the radially outer ends of the vanes are engaged and fastened, generally by welding. The inner shroud of the guide-vane stage has radial orifices in which the radially inner ends of the vanes are engaged with clearance, such clearance being of the order of 2 millimeters (mm) to 3 mm, approximately.
In the prior art, the inner ends of the vanes are secured to the inner shroud by means of a polymerizable sealing resin that is applied to the inside surface of the shroud and that, once hardened, serves to fasten the vanes to the shroud. The resin forms an annular block inside the inner shroud in which the radially inner ends of the vanes are embedded and presenting an inner periphery that defines an abradable track for co-operating with annular wipers of a rotor in order to form a labyrinth type seal.
Before the resin is applied to the inner shroud, it is known to inject the same resin into the above-mentioned clearance between each vane and the edges of the orifice in the inner shroud, around the entire periphery of each vane. This makes it possible to fill in the clearance beforehand and prevent a fraction of the resin subsequently passing through the clearance while the resin is being applied to the inner shroud (in order to avoid wasting resin and in order to limit the time taken for cleaning the guide-vane stage in order to eliminate any runs of resin therefrom). At present, resin is injected into the clearance by means of a syringe that is filled by an operator, with this injection step being lengthy and expensive (taking about 8 hours for one guide-vane stage), difficult, dirtying, and poorly reproducible. In order to limit the resin running when it is applied, it may be stored in a refrigerator prior to application in order to increase its viscosity. Nevertheless, although that makes it easier to work the resin, it involves complex management of batches of resin.